Global Warming

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Climate Change. Minister, what do recent reports show about the impact of global warming on South Australia and Australia? How is the state government working to establish credible national policy to tackle climate change and help bolster the efforts the state government has already taken?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:58): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. Almost as every day passes now, there are new reports and research being published right across the world, but also here in Australia, showing the consequences of dangerous global warming. For example, a recent paper published in the Journal of Science on 31 March this year has found that rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are impacting species in all of the world's ecosystems. I am advised that, in its findings, the paper states:

Movement of mosquitoes in response to global warming is a threat to health in many countries through predicted increases in the number of known and sometimes potentially new diseases.

Another landmark research paper recently published by scientists at Melbourne Uni in the journal of Nature Climate Change has found that global warming of 2º Celsius increases Australia's chances of having more summers like that in 2012-13 by approximately 77 per cent.

Honourable members will recall that the summer of 2012-13 was termed the 'angry summer' because it resulted in more than 200 record-breaking extreme weather events right across the country. Honourable members might also recall that Christmas Day in Adelaide in 2012 was 41.3°, the hottest in 70 years.

I am also advised that nationally 2012-13 remains Australia's hottest summer on record. That same paper also found that the extreme drought faced in 2006 would become almost a three in four years event if global warming was in the order of 2°. These are just some of the examples of consequences for Australia if global warming is not checked, and soon. The evidence is overwhelming, yet we still have people around the place who want to downplay this and even deny it. The fact is that climate change is real, it is happening and, as expert evidence shows, Australia will be impacted.

This is one of many reasons that I have been recently, again, disappointed at the lack of action at the federal government level. It is absolutely depressing, indeed pathetic, to see a prime minister pandering to the Liberal right wing for the sake of a few votes in caucus and selling out the future economic prosperity of the country and the country's health. Extreme weather events impact economies. What do you think having more of these extreme weather events will do to our economy? Changes in rainfall and when seasons commence impact on agriculture. What do you think this will mean for our food and wine sectors in this state alone?

Unlike the Liberals, of course, this government is taking action. We are tackling the challenges that climate change will bring. We are trying to seek out the opportunities that might arise from this for our communities and changing their practices, changing the way they sow, and when and how and what crops they sow. We are tackling the issues around emissions reduction and we are working to get credible and sensible long-term policy at the federal level that supports us to build a low carbon economy.

That may in fact mean, in some respects, avoiding the federal government completely and working with other states and territories to get a national plan of action in which the federal government can happily join us at any time they like, but the states and territories are not going to hang around and wait for their lead. A low carbon transition at the federal level has to start with an emissions intensity scheme, a scheme once championed by Mr Turnbull himself and now supported by climate groups, manufacturing sectors, industries, business, the energy sector, farmers, the CSIRO—in fact, almost everyone but the federal Liberal Party.

Because of the Liberal Party, we have almost half a decade of inaction at the federal level, half a decade of prevarication which we could ill afford. Rather than build our economy and help chart the transition to a low carbon future, we have seen both Liberal prime ministers put their heads in the sand. It is often tempting for us to joke about the Liberal Party as being stuck in the 1830s. They throw lumps of coal around the parliament at a federal level.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: Point of order: earlier this week—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The point of order.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: —you gave us advice that it is not appropriate for members to comment upon the machinations of political parties, and that is exactly what the minister is doing now. I ask you to ask him to desist.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: He was talking about the Liberal Party room.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Will the honourable minister please keep to the point of the question and continue his answer.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr President. A very wise ruling, as always. You are a Daniel come to judgement, Mr President. You understand, as those opposite don't, that climate change impacts the whole country—every jurisdiction, state, territory and federal. In fact, climate change policy is a responsibility of every jurisdiction in this country. We need all jurisdictions working together to challenge this global problem.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The honourable minister is on his feet.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: If you were to contrast the federal Liberal government's approach to climate change to, for example, energy policy, you would see that they would be back in the days of water wheels and coal. If you were to characterise it as being equivalent to, for example, an approach to modern medical treatment, they are back in the days of leeches. That is the level of the debate in the federal Liberal government. We won't even go to the NBN, where they have sold us out. They have sold us out. This week I used the words of Michael Bloomberg, a respected international businessperson, who said:

Government can no more save the coal industry than it could have saved the telegraph industry or the horse-and-buggy industry a century ago. Pretending otherwise only hurts those in coal communities—trapping them in a dying industry instead of helping them acquire new skills and gain access to new career opportunities.

If that is so obvious to someone like Michael Bloomberg, why isn't it also obvious to the federal government?

The Hon. P. Malinauskas: Because they are in denial.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: They are in denial. You have to say that, after five years of prevarication, enough is enough. In our state government submission to the federal environment and energy department's review of climate change policy we make it clear that it is time for action at the federal level. Our submission is available, for those honourable members who would like to download it and read it, at the State Climate Change website climatechange.sa.gov.au. In that submission we advocate for climate change to be elevated to the COAG level, a standing item to be considered by first ministers, together with energy, transport, agriculture and environment ministers.

Our submission calls for the federal government to adopt a national approach to improving climate science, including evaluating the impacts of the federal government's existing suite of climate change policies and sharing the evidence base and models with the wider community. It calls for a review of building regulations to further explore energy efficiency opportunities associated with commercial and residential buildings. It calls for incentives for the early introduction of zero emission vehicles (plug-in electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles amongst them) into Australia, and exploring mandating biofuels at a national level.

The time has come for national action and we need leadership at the federal level that helps Australia transition to a low carbon economy and supports the work that state and territory governments are doing. In concluding, I urge those opposite in the Liberal Party in South Australia not to hide behind the member for Sturt and be at his beck and call all the time but to stand up for the interests of the state and to come back and adopt sensible climate targets, like those of their counterparts in the New South Wales government—a Liberal government like this Labor government that has a goal of zero net emissions by 2050. By working together we can achieve these goals of tackling climate change, but the Liberal Party in South Australia is riding on the coat-tails of the federal Liberal government, doing absolutely nothing.